WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?: Germany is selling three Type 214 diesel-electric submarines to Pakistan. The deal was originally inked in late November of this year, but this month in the Bundestag, opposition Greens attempted to block or at least review the sale, in light of emerging Pakistani connections to the Mumbai attacks. The German parliament, however, didn’t take the bait—the sale goes ahead.

No doubt the Germans are wondering why the French should be the sole supplier of submarine technology to the Land of the Pure.
BRAZIL AIMS TO BUILD NUCS: Brazil plans to buy and build French Scorpene class diesel-electric subs, and redesign them to use nuclear powerplants. I cannot say I blame the Brazilians, particularly. They live next door to wild card Venezuela, and have a rather large area to defend—some 4,045nm of coastline.

Canadian policymakers and naval brass, of course, see no need for us to develop similar capabilities. That would be silly and extravagant. Our coastline is not thirty-two times longer (131,232nm) than Brazil’s, with the vast majority being rendered impenetrable by sea ice. And Canada, of course, has no known offshore oil reserves of her own to protect. Furthermore, our new-ish Victoria-class SSKs didn’t really require AIP systems necessary to operate under the Arctic ice pack. Who would ever want to send them there? Likewise the vision and determination to have spent millions building an Arctic SOSUS net so we know who else’s SSNs and SSKs are operating in our neighbourhood.

No need for any of that, at all. Our smug moral superiority keeps us strong and amply protected against any conceivable foe, of any conceivable capability.